This blog presents news items and resources relating to trial advocacy and the legal system, with a focus on Washington State. It was developed to support the Trial Advocacy Program at the University of Washington School of Law, but now has a broader coverage and a wider audience. In addition to information about trials and trial practice, you'll find notes about appellate practice, the courts, access to justice, and related topics.

The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) is the most effective and comprehensive campaign committed to improving the lawsuit climate in America and around the globe.

ILR’s mission is to restore balance, ensure justice, and maintain integrity within the civil legal system. We do this by creating broad awareness of the impact of litigation on society and by championing common sense legal reforms at the state, federal, and global levels.

ILR’s approach is highly aggressive and pragmatic, focused on achieving real change in real time while laying the groundwork for long-term legal reform. ILR’s hallmarks are the execution of cutting-edge strategies and a track record of visible success.

Friday, July 19, 2013

An economist has been mining Google search data to learn more about crime, particularly for crimes that are underreported. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, How Googling Unmasks Child Abuse, N.Y. Times, July 13, 2013.

Stephens-Davidowitz writes that another expert said that child abuse and neglect declined during the recession. Great news, right? But Stephens-Davidowitz found that certain Google searches went up, correlating with areas of high unemployment and decreased social services.

After declining for many years in the United States, the searches that seem to have come from abuse victims themselves rose as soon as the Great Recession began. On weeks that unemployment claims rose, these searches rose as well.

He also found higher rates of child mortality due to abuse—deaths due to abuse are less likely to be unreported than abuse itself.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Witness in Zimmerman Case Testifies by SkypeTwo problems arise with the new technology: The witness's testimony in this case was interrupted by pranksters; and appearing via Skype may violate the constitutional right to face your accuser. Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon talks with attorney John Hutchins about using Skype in criminal cases.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Most prisons charge inmates such high rates that "a phone call from an inmate across town may be ten times more expensive than ringing a friend in Singapore," says the Legal Times blog. Now the FCC might do something about it. The agency is holding a day-long workshop today. FCC Tackles Cost of Prison Phone Calls, The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times, July 10, 2013.

It's a big issue for the quality of life of inmates and their families. It also affects access to counsel (defense counsel get hit with big bills accepting calls from clients). And it affects state budgets: a Virginia legislator who wants to reform prison phone rates acknowledges that the state general fund would miss the millions of dollars it has been making from the high rates. "What do we replace the lost revenue with? That's our problem."

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Reflecting the change in Washington State law making it legal for adults to possess small amounts of marijuana and use it in private, some law enforcement agencies are retraining their drug-sniffing dogs not to alert for marijuana.

The current issue of the Oregon Law Review (available free in PDF) is a symposium on drug policy. It includes Jane Bambauer, Defending the Dog, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1203 (2013). The author says "This short essay makes the uneasy case for the narcotics dog. Those in favor of U.S. drug enforcement presumably need no convincing, but this Article intends to address the concerns of skeptics who worry about unjust drug enforcement, or who believe that criminalization is just plain bad policy. Dogs are just the first generation of a new set of law enforcement tools that can help us divorce criminal investigation from the bias and discretion that comes with traditional policing." Id. at 1204.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Spurred by his son's mental illness and prosecution for breaking into a neighbor's house while he was delusional, journalist Pete Earley spent two years exploring what happens to mentally ill Americans, particularly those who encounter the criminal justice system. The result is a conassionate, revealing, and disturbing book: Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness (2006).

Since the national movement to deinstitutionalize people with mental illness in the 1980s, many more people with very serious conditions are living on the margins of society, often on the streets. There are inadequate services available to them—community mental health clinics, sheltered living situations, support groups.

All too often they commit crimes related to their illness and land in jail. There are the headline-making crimes (the gruesome murderof a family), but also a thousand petty crimes. For instance, Earley interview and befriends a man who writes "Jesus 2007" on buildings and walls to announce his belief that Jesus is about to return; the man is repeatedly jailed because of his graffiti. At a bus stop, one woman yells at another, "Stop stealing my thoughts!" and shoves her. The second woman isn't hurt and doesn't want to press charges, but the delusional woman is jailed nonetheless.

Earley spent most of his time in Miami, but tells us that the horrible conditions he observed in the Miami-Dade jail's psych floor are not uniquely bad and could be found in many other places. His sustained reporting in one lhttp://www.peteearley.com/blog/ocation adds depth to the book, because he is able to follow several people from jail to hospital and back. He interviews many other participants in the system too: a reforming judge, a jail psychiatrist, parents in a support group, correctional officers, nurses, and more.

You can read the first chapter on Earley's website. Earley's blog provides updates and commentary on mental health issues. By the way, Earley has this "important note" on his website: "The word 'CRAZY' in the book title refers to the mental health care system."

Saturday, May 18, 2013

It's tough enough to handle litigation when you're a lawyer, but it's incredibly stressful and daunting when you don't.

CBC's Day Six has a 15-minute story on self-represented litigants (May 18, 2013). It begins with a moving interview of middle-class Vancouver woman who ran out of money for her lawyer about five months and $50,000 into her case. She's well-spoken and well-educated (master's degree) and was still overwhelmed.

I have just scrolled through the report quickly, but it looks very interesting. Canadians and the Canadian court system are similar enough to US folks and the US legal system that the report is very relevant to our access-to-justice issues.

Julie Macfarlane teaches law at the University of Windsor. Her faculty bio is here .

Thursday, April 4, 2013

You've heard of people who were shown by DNA evidence to be innocent of the crimes they were imprisoned for. How can that happen? What can we learn from it?

Prof. Brandon Garrett (with the help of a team of research assistants) found out all he could about the first 250 DNA exonerations, gathering trial transcripts (when available), news coverage, appellate records, and the records from state post-conviction proceedings and federal habeas cases. Then he mined the data: How many of the exonerated people had confessed falsely? How many had been mistakenly identified by one or more eyewitnesses? How many were prosecuted with questionable forensic evidence (hair analysis, for instance, does not prove much of anything)? How many years did it take from initial conviction to eventual exoneration?

He presents the results in Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong (KF9756 .G37 2011 at Classified Stacks). The results are disturbing—but can also be instructive.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Interested in public service law? Sign up for the Trina Grillo Retreat, which will be here March 22-23. Friday evening's events are at the Talaris Conference Center and Saturday's workshops are at UW Law. The retreat provides a unique opportunity for law students, faculty and practitioners to exchange viewpoints, explore career opportunities, and formulate creative strategies for social justice.

There will be great content and a collegial environment, with law students and practitioners from the West Coast.

Attending is cheap! Cost to a UW law student (or a student from another consortium law school)? $0. That's right: it's free! Cost to practitioners? Just $25.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The philosopher Socrates was tried for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. He was found guilty and executed in 399 B.C. Next week, he will be tried again—but in Chicago, not Athens.

The Trial of Socrates, organized by the National Hellenic Museum, will feature a lot of legal star power. The presiding judge will be 7th Circuit judge, law professor, and prolific author Richard Posner. You can read or hear an interview with one of the prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, here (NPR Weekend Edition, Jan. 26, 2013).

For the history, see The Trial of Socrates, by Prof. Douglas O. Linder. It's just one of many trials for which Linder presents essays, transcripts, images, and more on his Famous Trials site.